


the mantle of an angel

by sicklysweetsimp (lamisericorde)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: 2020 L'Manberg Election on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Blood and Injury, Explosions, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27708748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamisericorde/pseuds/sicklysweetsimp
Summary: The room is tiny. Cramped. Cold and all sharp edges. It makes Phil feel on edge.His son. His glorious son."Kill me," Wilbur says, pressing the hilt of the sword into his hand.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Kudos: 38





	the mantle of an angel

The room is tiny. Cramped. Cold and all sharp edges. It makes Phil feel on edge, like there's a knife to the back of his neck that he just hasn't felt yet.

A knife might not be too far off; the walls are scratched, long lines that are smeared with blood and he can barely make out words from them, but they're there nonetheless.

_My L'Manburg._

His son. His glorious son, who had always burned so bright.

They called him Soot.

Here, in the ashes of L'Manburg, standing on the precipice of the maw that had once been a home, it seems like sick irony.

The smoke fills his lungs. The ash drifts around them, settles in his hair like snow.

The soot smears against the ground where Wilbur had dragged his hands along it.

Phil pulls his wings back, from where he had instinctually flung them out to protect his son. The wall where the button had sat is no longer; instead, a gaping hole and the people gathered besides the crater in the earth stare at them, some bloodied, some passed out.

Among them stands Tommy, back straight, pressing his hands to another one - likely Tubbo's - wound. Technoblade is behind the pair, imposing as ever in the cape, and he thinks the ginger one is Fundy, his grandson.

"It was never meant to be," Wilbur says, and Phil turns back to him.

He looks _wrong_.

He had always been tall, but now he's far too skinny, the long coat giving him all of his shape, and the bags beneath his eyes are stark against how pale he is, and his voice is destroyed and his hair tangled and Wilbur is wrong.

His son did this.

There are no dead, not that he can see, but. His son did this, destroyed this country.

"Wilbur," he says, but then his words fail him and he's just left there, on the cliff, staring at his son.

Wilbur sets one hand on his waist, pulls out a diamond sword - since when did Wilbur use weapons and not words - and holds the hilt out to his father.

"Kill me."

He can't, can't take the sword, can't accept what it means.

"Do it! Kill me! Take the damn sword!"

"I _can't_ ," and his vision blurs, tears building at the corner of his eyes. Wilbur strides to him, as much as one can stride in the tiny room, and grabs Phil's hand, wraps his fingers around the sword and holds them there.

"I'm not your _son_ ," Wilbur spits. "I'm nothing to you, Philza. You with your wings, you who takes the mantle of angel yet acts so mortal. My only allegiance is to L'Manburg, and if I cannot have L'Manburg, I will tear it and it's people to the ground. Raze their faction and their family, isn't it? Kill me, or I go down there, and I drive this sword through Tommy, through Techno, until there's not a person left, because it's _mine -_ "

He slides the sword neatly between Wilbur's ribs, and his son falls silent.

"Oh," and he collapses, yet the blade holds him up and he _slides_ forward, sickeningly, until his head rests on Phil's shoulder. "Oh, I didn't think it would hurt so much."

Phil's knees buckle, and he collapses, on his knees with his son leaning on him, and Wilbur coughs, blood pouring out of his mouth.

"Phil?"

" _No,_ " he whispers, pressing his hands against the sword where it protrudes from Wilbur's back. "No, no no no!"

The sky is orange, and black, and the smoke fills his lungs, and Wilbur coughs blood into his back, and the blood pools on the ground, and it sinks into the crevices of Phil's hands and slides into his feathers and he will never be able to wash this off.

This he cannot undo.

"Thank you," Wilbur says, voice quiet, broken, and tired. "Thank you, Dad."

And Wilbur's chest stops moving.

Phil is frantic, almost, desperately trying anything, but he can't -

His son is dead, by his own hand, and there is nothing he can do.

He wraps his arms around Wil, and his wings, and they are so soaked with blood that they look black, and then he realizes and lets go, backs up until his spine is pressed to the wall, and Wil is laid on the floor, limp, like a doll with its strings cut.

Two cracks of thunder, and his head snaps to the side, and there are Withers standing behind Technoblade, who holds his sword to Tommy's throat, and he looks back once at Wilbur, but -

"I'm sorry," Phil cries, and then he takes off.

One of his sons is gone. The others - maybe he can still save them.

Maybe he hasn't ruined all of their lives.

His son, who burned so brightly, extinguished.


End file.
